I've always loved the mountain air. There was something about driving through the trees on the old highway that made my mind wander. As a teenager, I would drive across the mountains on trips with my friends, leaving our small town behind. The summer air after high school was full of our music blasting against the wind, and our laughter, still excited about what our futures would bring. High school was over. None of us were to know that my friend, Jennifer Kable, who sat in the passenger seat, waving her hand out the window, would disappear and her boyfriend, Daniel, would be found brutally murdered the next day. We were only an hour away from our day-site at the lake, but twelve hours later, they were both gone.
No one knew what had happened. We had spent the night at the lake, swimming and playing games with each other, each of us drinking illegally, but we didn’t mention that part when we were questioned. There were six people. Me and my current boyfriend at the time, Kevin, Jen and Daniel, and finally Sue and Torren, the last couple. It took an hour and a half to get to the lake and it took the same time to return. We all returned- people at the general store confirmed it. We all had made it back from our summer high, ready to get to work and save money for our colleges. But the next day, Jen and Daniel were missing.
They searched all the popular hangouts us kids had back in the day. They still exist now. Nothing changes in Leweys. Except for the population.
Everyone who grows up in Lewisville calls the town Leweys. No one knows why except that it was a tradition. We all hunted for sport, some more than others. I wasn’t a huge fan, but if someone asked me to trap a rabbit or gut a fish, I could do it.
Daniel was found on the shore, lying face down in the shallow water. He was found the next morning by a park officer doing patrols around the lake. They knew us kids liked to party there. Someone had shot him in the side of the head. At first glance, it could have been a suicide, but the gun was gone, and so was Jen. They searched, but she was never found. Her bag was missing, including her license and cards. She had disappeared without a trace, and some people began to speculate.
Had Daniel not been treating her right? Was she messed up in the head and decided to run away, killing her boyfriend in the process? The funeral came and went, everyone, mourning the young man’s life, but in the back of the mind in every griever, there remained the mysterious disappearance of Jennifer Kable.
Until now.
I had never expected to hear the radio call that morning, reporting that a body had been found in the middle of the forest.
The years had been kind to me. Time had been kind enough to let me get married and have a divorce, to watch my infant boy grow into an energetic three-year-old. It had been kind, granting me a job in the town’s law enforcement, my only dream since that dreadful summer day. I was lucky in my contentment, not really feeling the need to leave my small town. Kevin left me, but he stayed on the other side of town. Sue married and left, and Torren went across the world doing god-knows-what. He sends me an occasional postcard now and then.
Maybe he sent them because it was nice to know someone would remember him if he ever returned.
I had always hoped Jennifer had shot Daniel. Cruel, I know, but there was no speculation of hope concerning Daniel. He died, and we would all remember him as the college boy who was murdered. Jennifer went missing. I hoped she was the one who shot him because that gave me a chance to hope she was still alive. It erased the scary idea of a stranger killing both of them and having her last moments be full of pain and terror. In that intimate moment of dying, would you rather be killed by a friend or a stranger? Would the betrayal double the pain?
I feared the worst driving up that mountain road, my car radio turned down, filling my mind with white noise. Who would we find?265Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5xA636G7h7
I pulled up, the jeep lurching to a stop, and I walked out, locking the police vehicle behind me. Several cars surrounded the scene- a crime scene unit and the park rangers who had found the body. I spotted the Sheriff’s car on the sidelines as well.
“Who is it?” I asked, stepping under the crime scene tape and approached the sheriff, who was talking with one of our two detectives, an old law enforcement veteran.
“It’s…. hard to tell…” The old man turned to me, his green eyes tired.
I walked closer, minding where I stepped until the former husk of a human being entered my sight.
“Oh my god!” I cried out, sharply gasping out, and the Sheriff hurried over to hold my arm, steadying me.
It wasn't the first body I had seen. That had been a child who had drowned in a summer ten years ago.
But this, this was barely a human body. I wanted to throw up, but the Sheriff’s hands helped me stay afloat and not fall to the ground. I didn’t want to be the one to contaminate the crime scene.
It was a woman, that you could tell. But with the decomposition of the body, she had to have died over fifteen years ago. She was mostly a skeleton, but some skin and matter still remained on her bones. Her ribcage was split open, along with the rest of her body; A long cut went up from her pelvis to the top of her chest. She had been gutted like a deer.265Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4rRwxjO1nt
“H-how was she found?” Unable to look at the body anymore, I turned to a park ranger.265Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCfP6TODXYX
“A group of college kids came to the campground to look for ‘buried treasure’. We keep trying to tell them that it’s just a rumor some rich guy made on his deathbed, but we get a few every year. They disrupt wildlife and often get hurt climbing where they shouldn’t. This group happened to find something else entirely.” She pointed to a ranger jeep where three young adults were huddled together, all of them male. One was bawling his eyes out.
“We’ll need to interview them all once they calm down. Did they dig anywhere else?”
“Yeah, a few other holes were found in the area, but no other bodies.”
I turned to the unit, “Make sure we search the area and scan for more bodies. I don’t want to leave any stone unturned, got it?” They all respond in unison, some mere grumbles.
Sheriff Hollar approached me, hand on my shoulder. He was old enough to be my father.
“I want you to take point and oversee the investigation. Detective Welham will be working directly under you, got it?” He waited for my response.
“Wait, what?”
He glanced back at the body in disgust, “I trust you, Lynn, it’s why you’re my deputy.”
He walked away and got back into his car, leaving me at the crime scene, wondering if he truly did trust me to solve the case, or if he just felt he was too old to deal with this kind of case.
I didn’t know how serious the hunt for the killer would be until the next morning, when another body was found.
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